What? Every time I look one up, it's vegan. Maybe I just have some innate, built-in vegan beer detector. That, or I'm South Australian so I just have Coopers flowing through my veins and don't need to venture far from the nest.

What? Every time I look one up, it's vegan. Maybe I just have some innate, built-in vegan beer detector. That, or I'm South Australian so I just have Coopers flowing through my veins and don't need to venture far from the nest.

Well, I guess I think of XXXX as our most popular brand, and it isn't. And I'm pretty sure VB isn't, either.

Just a heads up, there are some vegan ingredients with like really miniscule amounts of cholesterol. It's a good red flag in general though.

My understanding from reading numerous health websites, doctor's and dietician's websites/books, etc., is that cholesterol only comes from animal products. If there are miniscule amounts of cholesterol in a product, it must have some ingredient (perhaps in the "natural flavoring") that is not necessarily listed which came from animals. Either that or the company doesn't know the true meaning of cholesterol. For example, I was at a grocery store that had information above the fruits, vegetables, etc. in the front of the store. Next to avocados, it said "low in cholesterol"...if they meant low as in NO cholesterol, then that's true;) Vegan ingredients can have saturated fats or even transfats which your body uses to produce cholesterol (and do sometimes have plant sterols--which act in the body in a more positive way than dietary cholesterol), but only animal products contain cholesterol.

_________________A bunny's a delightful habit, no home's complete without a rabbit.--Clare Newberry

Last edited by Whovian on Tue Dec 11, 2012 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

At my school they had Frito-Lay products in the vending machines for a while. Some of their chips (such as plain Lay's, plain Frito's, etc.) were vegan. Then they switched to some cheaper off-brand and I bought some plain potato chips that contained milk. I gave them away. Then I was at a meeting where they had containers of snack crackers and the peanut butter crackers (on wheat toast) had milk in them. It can be irritating sometimes. I know I'm not as good as some of you about keeping up with the lactylates and such. For one, I have no apps as I have an idiot phone (it won't text, doesn't have a camera, etc.) that I only use in rare cases to make a phone call--mainly for emergencies. I do, as other mentioned, looked at the allergen label first, then cholesterol, then I look for the ones I know (whey, honey, lanolin, etc.).

_________________A bunny's a delightful habit, no home's complete without a rabbit.--Clare Newberry

I have never in my life read so many labels as I do now. Also, after tons of reading online I have decided to always read labels even if I have bought the item before. They reformulate things all the time and sometimes even different manufacturing plants can have different recipes for the same item. So unless something has the certified vegan on it, I am reading the label.

A lot of vegetarian cheeses have casein (milk product) it them. Lots of fake meats have egg whites in them. Makes me so mad.

Just a heads up, there are some vegan ingredients with like really miniscule amounts of cholesterol. It's a good red flag in general though.

My understanding from reading numerous health websites, doctor's and dietician's websites/books, etc., is that cholesterol only comes from animal products. If there are miniscule amounts of cholesterol in a product, it must have some ingredient (perhaps in the "natural flavoring") that is not necessarily listed which came from animals. Either that or the company doesn't know the true meaning of cholesterol. For example, I was at a grocery store that had information above the fruits, vegetables, etc. in the front of the store. Next to avocados, it said "low in cholesterol"...if they meant low as in NO cholesterol, then that's true;) Vegan ingredients can have saturated fats or even transfats which your body uses to produce cholesterol (and do sometimes have plant sterols--which act in the body in a more positive way than dietary cholesterol), but only animal products contain cholesterol.

Yup, cholesterol is an animal product only. Plants have something similar called plant sterols but they aren't cholesterol.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

Just a heads up, there are some vegan ingredients with like really miniscule amounts of cholesterol. It's a good red flag in general though.

My understanding from reading numerous health websites, doctor's and dietician's websites/books, etc., is that cholesterol only comes from animal products. If there are miniscule amounts of cholesterol in a product, it must have some ingredient (perhaps in the "natural flavoring") that is not necessarily listed which came from animals. Either that or the company doesn't know the true meaning of cholesterol. For example, I was at a grocery store that had information above the fruits, vegetables, etc. in the front of the store. Next to avocados, it said "low in cholesterol"...if they meant low as in NO cholesterol, then that's true;) Vegan ingredients can have saturated fats or even transfats which your body uses to produce cholesterol (and do sometimes have plant sterols--which act in the body in a more positive way than dietary cholesterol), but only animal products contain cholesterol.

Yup, cholesterol is an animal product only. Plants have something similar called plant sterols but they aren't cholesterol.

Plants do in fact contain very low levels of cholesterol ("plant sterol" is a generic term, by the way, and includes cholesterol among other more common sterols). However, the amount of cholesterol in plants is so low that it should never be an amount that would wind up on a food label for a normal serving size, it would always be rounded down to zero - if the food label has cholesterol listed, it's not vegan (unless it's an error - sometimes companies will put a generic label on multiple types of the same kind of food, you may be eating a vegan food with a non-vegan label). Even though cholesterol on the label = animal products in the food, that doesn't mean that plants can't contain cholesterol.

For example olive oil typically contains 0.5–2 mg cholesterol per kg and sesame oil about 1 mg cholesterol per kg. For designing diets it is also important to understand that labelling laws in the USA (and probably elsewhere) allow amounts less than 2 mg per serving to be shown as "zero".

Plants do in fact contain very low levels of cholesterol ("plant sterol" is a generic term, by the way, and includes cholesterol among other more common sterols). However, the amount of cholesterol in plants is so low that it should never be an amount that would wind up on a food label for a normal serving size, it would always be rounded down to zero - if the food label has cholesterol listed, it's not vegan (unless it's an error - sometimes companies will put a generic label on multiple types of the same kind of food, you may be eating a vegan food with a non-vegan label). Even though cholesterol on the label = animal products in the food, that doesn't mean that plants can't contain cholesterol.

For example olive oil typically contains 0.5–2 mg cholesterol per kg and sesame oil about 1 mg cholesterol per kg. For designing diets it is also important to understand that labelling laws in the USA (and probably elsewhere) allow amounts less than 2 mg per serving to be shown as "zero".

One of the classes I took (nutrition? biology? physiology?) indicated that cholesterol was specifically reserved for animal-based sterols which is where I was basing my information. They also said that plant-based sterols were not called cholesterol. The way labeling is done though, it may not be differentiating.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

The point of the blurb I linked to was actually that this is often taught wrong and that the information is often wrong in college textbooks. I think it would be especially likely to be taught wrong in a nutrition class. Plant sterols definitely include cholesterol as well as like hundreds of other sterols.

P.S. Sterols found in plants are called "phytosterols." Sterols found in animals (like humans) are "zoosterols." There is overlap between the sterols plants produce and the sterols animals produce, since of course many of our cell structures and functions are the same. Cholesterol could be classified as both a zoosterol and a phytosterol, but plays a much bigger role in animals.

The point of the blurb I linked to was actually that this is often taught wrong and that the information is often wrong in college textbooks. I think it would be especially likely to be taught wrong in a nutrition class. Plant sterols definitely include cholesterol as well as like hundreds of other sterols.

P.S. Sterols found in plants are called "phytosterols." Sterols found in animals (like humans) are "zoosterols." There is overlap between the sterols plants produce and the sterols animals produce, since of course many of our cell structures and functions are the same. Cholesterol could be classified as both a zoosterol and a phytosterol, but plays a much bigger role in animals.

That makes sense. Reminds me of what our chemistry teacher told us in that in order to simplify things, they often explain things 'wrong' in intro classes and then correct things later on in advanced classes.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

That makes sense. Reminds me of what our chemistry teacher told us in that in order to simplify things, they often explain things 'wrong' in intro classes and then correct things later on in advanced classes.

Yeah, that's annoying. As though we're not paying attention! And what about the people who only take the intro class - disseminating false information into the world forever!

That makes sense. Reminds me of what our chemistry teacher told us in that in order to simplify things, they often explain things 'wrong' in intro classes and then correct things later on in advanced classes.

Yeah, that's annoying. As though we're not paying attention! And what about the people who only take the intro class - disseminating false information into the world forever!

Ouch... actually I don't take things personally but it sounds perfectly plausible/believable. Based on this thread, it seems that no vegan items should list cholesterol even if there are trace amounts and it sounds like it may be an error if it does.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

if it's never going to be listed on the label and it exists in the amount of 1mg/kg, then I disagree that we should still teach about minuscule amounts of cholesterol in plant foods in something like an into to nutrition class. I think it's fine to say that only animal ingredients contain cholesterol because, as far as eating food goes, when would that ever matter? In a biology course it would make sense to talk about it, but not really in nutrition.

ETA:: I do see your point, Ariann. From a science perspective, it's annoying when things are wrong, but I think simplifying is an important part of both learning and disseminating nutrition information. And if you ever want to go into any sort of nutrition counseling, you'll need to take more than that one intro class.

_________________I am not a troll. I am TELLING YOU THE ******GOD'S TRUTH****** AND YOU JUST DON'T WANT THE HEAR IT DO YOU?

Since in this case it's so simple to say "Plant foods contain such a miniscule amount of cholesterol that they are not an important source of cholesterol in the diet" it doesn't make sense to me to instead say "Plants contain no cholesterol." Since most of the people who take intro classes *only* take the intro class, it seems even more important to not simplify to the point of telling untruths. Easy fix.